GALLANTRY IN ACTION

Southland Times, Issue 24547, 23 September 1941, Page 6

GALLANTRY IN ACTION

' Gore Man Receives Military Cross The name of 2nd-Lieutenant Charles T. Mason, son of Mr and Mrs Andrew Mason, Wentworth street, East Gore, is included in the list of preliminary • decorations for gallantry in action in : the Balkans campaigns. 2nd-Lieutenant i Mason, who has been awarded the . Military Cross, is well known in the Gore district. Mr and Mrs Mason have not received details of the action in which their son distinguished himself, but they have received accounts of many tribulations through which he passed in Greece. Born at ( Pukerau, 2nd-Lieutenant Mason began his education at the Longbush school. He completed his primary education at Brydone and later attended tlie Gore High School. He was an outstanding scholar and he also showed sporting ability. He was a member of the first fifteen and the first eleven. After securing his matriculation he attended the Canterbury Training College and he was later a student at the Dunedin Training College. 2nd-Lieutenant Mason began his teaching career at Cadrona and later he was stationed at Maitland, Invercargill, Bluff and Queenstown. While at Bluff he was a member of the Bluff senior Rugby Football Club and was prominent as a five-eighths. He enlisted from Queenstown and he went overseas holding the rank of a sergeant. He was recommended for training as an officer, and he gained his commission after a course of instruction at Sandhurst Military College. After being in the thick of the fighting in Greece, 2nd-Lieutenant Mason narrowly escaped being taken a prisoner of war. He was wounded in five places and he succeeded in escaping from | Greece with a number of others in a (fishing boat, eventually reaching Egypt after five weeks. He was injured while on manoeuvres soon after his return to Egypt and he spent some months in hospital. He is now reported to be fit and well. WINNER OF D.S.O. LIEUTENANT-COLONEL KIPPENBERGER Lieutenant-Colonel H. K. Kippenberger, who has been awarded the Distinguished Service Order for his part in the defence of Crete, was chosen to command the 20th Rifle Battalion when the first draft of troops for the 2nd New Zealand Expeditionary Force entered camp. At that time he was only 42 years of age. Behind him, however, he had, for so young an officer, con- j siderable military experience, includ- . ing service in the Great War, and a long connection with the territorial forces in New Zealand. A son of Mr and Mrs K. Kippenberger, of Waimate, he was educated at the Christchurch Boys’ High School, and became a member of the school cadets in 1911. He joined the Canterbury Regiment in 1916 as a private, and went overseas with the 12th Reinforcement. He was wounded in France just before the end of the war and invalided home. After the war he was granted a commission in the territorials, and was in command of the Rangiora platoon of the Ist Battalion Canterbury Regiment. In 1929 he was promoted to the rank of captain, became major in 1934, and two years later he was appointed lieutenant-colonel in command of the Ist Battalion Canterbury Regiment.

Lieutenant-Colonel Kippenberger, who is a solicitor practising in Rangiora, has added notably to his record of service in the present war. At the close of 1 the campaign in Greece he was in charge of the rearguard which was responsible for demolitions behind the retreating Allied forces, and, with his small force, he rejoined the units that were being evacuated only after some extraordinarily narrow escapes. In Crete he commanded the brigade that held the area between Galatos and Malemi. Lieutenant-Colonel Kippenberger’s chief hobby has been the army, and he has probably the most comprehensive military library in New Zealand. A younger brother is Wing-Com-mander R. L. Kippenberger, ’ who has served with the Royal Air Force for the last 12 years.